


Sweet Child of Mine

by m3aculpa



Category: Glee
Genre: Angst, Community: glee_angst_meme, F/M, Gen, Grief, Minor Character Death, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-01
Updated: 2010-12-01
Packaged: 2017-10-24 01:02:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/257113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/m3aculpa/pseuds/m3aculpa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Only 9 hours of life... didn't know they made little white coffins that small...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sweet Child of Mine

**Author's Note:**

> **Title:** Sweet Child of Mine  
>  **Fandom:** Glee **  
> Rating:** G  
>  **Characters/Pairings:** Quinn, Puck, vague Puck/Quinn, mentions of ensemble  
>  **Warnings:** Angst, minor character death, possible tear-jerker  
>  **Word count:** 618 words  
>  **Prompt:** Written for [this](http://community.livejournal.com/glee_angst_meme/3065.html?thread=4991993#t4991993) prompt at the [](http://community.livejournal.com/glee_angst_meme/profile)[**glee_angst_meme**](http://community.livejournal.com/glee_angst_meme/) : _Suffering through 9 months of vomiting, of social disgrace, of loosing your family and bouncing around your 'friends' houses. All that work and what did it get you?  
>  Only 9 hours of life... didn't know they made little white coffins that small..._  
>  **Summary** : Only 9 hours of life... didn't know they made little white coffins that small...

It’s so tiny. Tiny and white. She’s sure she’s read stories about it; about tiny, white coffins, about tiny, little lives that were extinguished before they began. It is so much tinier than she expected, still. She had no idea they made coffins that small.  
   
Her hands flutter to her stomach before she can stop herself. It is a reflexive gesture by now. Nine months. Nine months with a life was growing inside her. Actually, it was more like ten. Months when her hands would flutter to her stomach and spread their fingers wide so it could cover a much bigger area. She had been responsible for another life.  
   
Nine months of her body undergoing changes. Hormones wrecking havoc on her emotional stability; she’s frightened everyone in Glee at least once by bursting out in tears randomly. She just couldn’t _stop_ and she hated it. Morning sickness that made her run to puke every other minute and smells that triggered a violent reaction. Swollen ankles and back aches. She’d been unable to lie on her back, which was the way she preferred to sleep. If she did, she could hardly breathe.  
   
She’d gained so much _weight_. She had to force herself away from years of starvation to a healthy diet. It made her weep when she saw how much she gained. Until she realised that maybe coach Sylvester was wrong. Maybe you didn’t have to be paper thin to be beautiful. Only seeing how Mercedes was affected made her realise just how harmful it really was.  
   
That’s just the physiological changes. It doesn’t mention that she learnt how her father’s love was conditional. How little it took for him to throw her out. They don’t entail how violently her life changed. She went from being head cheerleader and respected, to the school slut who got knocked up. Despite the fact that she only had sex just this once; one drunken mistake.  
   
She bounced from house to house. Her friends took her in and she was grateful, just as she was resentful. She had become a charity case. But they never complained or seemed put-upon when they were forced to help her. She has to give this experience that; before this, she didn’t have any true friends. Now she has eleven.  
   
Nine months of changes. Her life will never be the same again. Nine months of _hell_ … and it had been for nothing.  
   
There would be no adoption. She can’t fantasise about her little girl growing up and having a great life. A much greater life than she could offer her now. Her little girl would have been loved. But that life will never be.  
   
Nine months of hell and in the end it had only produced nine hours of life. They couldn’t explain what had happened. Her little baby girl had just given up.  
   
It’s surreal. The funeral is bigger than expected. The club has shown up, of course, her mum is there and Mr Schue. But Quinn can’t speak. She is frozen. The little casket is lowered into the earth. She wants to scream and shout and whimper. Her baby girl can’t be dead. They are burying her alive. The rain washes over her face, but touches nothing else.  
   
She thinks that the arm holding her up belongs to Puck. Puck, who looks like he has aged ten years since Beth passed away. She wants to resent him, but she can’t. He suffers too. And she’s not sure at all that it is him that’s holding her up when she wants to crumble to the ground.  
   
She has no idea who’s making those broken whimpers. It sounds like an abused puppy.  
   
They might be coming from her.

 

  



End file.
